Thousands of silicified wood fragments were recently collected from the middle Cenomanian of Vienne in western France at less than 10 km away from a historical locality where in 1870 the French geologist Alphonse Le Touzé de Longuemar reported silicified wood. The plant assemblage is very diverse, and includes several species of ferns, conifers, and angiosperms. We describe and discuss the systematic affinities of a new vesselless angiosperm. Many of its characters are shared by extant and fossil Winteraceae. Nevertheless, the absence of uniseriate rays makes the anatomy of these specimens unique. Its combination of characters justifies the establishment of a new genus of vesselless fossil angiosperm wood of uncertain affinity, Sherwinoxylon gen. nov.

CarlquistS.1992. Wood anatomy and stem of Chloranthus; summary of wood anatomy of Chloranthaceae, with comments on relationships, vessellessness, and the origin of monocotyledons. IAWA J.13: 3–16. https://doi.org/10.1163/22941932-90000556.

GrímssonFGrimmGWPottsAJZetterRRennerSS. 2018. A Winteraceae pollen tetrad from the early Paleocene of western Greenland, and the fossil record of Winteraceae in Laurasia and Gondwana. J. Biogeogr.45: 567–581. DOI: .